The 411 On Why Being Vegan Is As Easy As Pie

It’s an egg-free world, and we’re all just living in it

How’s everyone’s week going? So Wednesday I told you guys why I’m not down with the egg industry and why we shouldn’t eat eggs. Today is a (more fun!) part-2 to that post: what to use for baking/cooking when you’ve decided to give up eggs, aka egg replacers!

Follow Your Heart’s VeganEgg

So first and foremost, I can’t write a post about egg replacers without talking about Follow Your Heart’sVeganEgg!! I feel like the VeganEgg was all I heard about last summer for a month straight from the vegan community, and I wasn’t complaining. This “egg” is a BIG DEAL!

If you don’t know what the “deal” with the VeganEgg is, let me break it down for ya. The VeganEgg is a plant based egg replacer, consisting of mostly algal protein and algal flour. “Algal” means that it is derived from algae, this algae being produced from microalgae found in the Netherlands. The algal ingredients contains healthy lipids, healthy carbs, micronutrients, essential amino acids, and are a great source of dietary fiber. Aka, the VeganEgg can kick a real egg’s butt any day.

Taste wise, I think the VeganEgg is great. It gets it’s eggy taste from black salt, but isn’t tooooo eggy at the same time. My absolute FAVORITE use for the VeganEgg is making French toast, which I just posted about the other week!

When I still ate eggs, I used to be an omelet PRO. I really do mean pro too. I had mastered the art of omelet making, meaning I could flip any omelet no matter how big and stuffed with veggies it was. Luckily, now that the VeganEgg exists, I can use my pre-existing skills to make omelets again. The other day I made the most perfect omelet of my life with the VeganEgg. It contained mushrooms, peppers, onions, tomatoes, and Miyoko’s Winter Truffle cashew cheese. IT. WAS. LIFE CHANGING.

It may not look that fancy (I only took this picture to send to my mom and not for blog-purposes), so excuse its “casual-ness,” but lemme tell you, this omelet was superb.

Alright, so let’s move on to some other ingredients and I’ll stop fan-girling over the VeganEgg!

Bananas

Bananas are such a popular egg replacer, and such a delicious and healthy one at that! They are great for replacing eggs in cakes and cookie recipes, because of their binding properties. I’ve found that the general rule of thumb with using bananas to replace eggs is to use 1/2 of a ripe banana for every egg in a recipe.

When I have bananas that are getting a little too brown for my liking, I peel and freeze them and save them for baking and such! The browner the banana, the sweeter and tastier for baking 🙂

Flax Eggs

A “flax egg” is a goopy substance made from flax seeds that works as a fabulous egg replacer. To make a single flax egg, combine 1 TB of ground flax seed with 3 TB of water. Stir, and refrigerate for 15 minutes and your egg is good to go!

We use them at the chocolate shop I work at (Lagusta’s Luscious!) for making candied pecans. Like bananas, they also work well to bind things, hence why they’re great egg replacers! In my opinion, these work best in pancakes because of their nutty taste.

Applesauce

Applesauce is probably my most used ingredient when replacing eggs in cakes. We always seem to have applesauce in the fridge, so it’s a really easy choice. (Also, just throwing this out there: am I the only one who can eat literally a half of gallon of apple sauce in like 10 minutes?! I turn into a monster when it comes to applesauce. It becomes an “eye on the prize” sorta situation with me… Scary stuff.)

Using applesauce as an egg replacer is a piece of cake. Substitute 1/3-1/4 cup of applesauce for each egg, and that is that!

Ener-G Egg replacer

The Ener-G Egg replacer is great for mimicking eggs in baked recipes. It is pretty much flavorless, and all ya do is mix it with water and viola! It is made from potato and tapioca starch, so it gets a check plus in my book for not being super processed and made of chemicals.

Silken Tofu

Silken tofu is SO versatile. I love using it for smoothies, and I even have a delish vegan sour cream recipe that consists of mostly silken tofu. It’s great! Silken tofu is great for baking because it adds a dense-ness to your baked goods, which is why it is best for baking brownies and other dense baked goods. To use it as an egg replacer, substitute 1/4 cup of silken tofu puree for 1 egg.

Soda

This one may sound a little out there, but I hear people swear by it! Using soda to replace eggs is mainly used when making boxed cake mix. Most boxed cake mix is vegan, so mix that with 1 can of soda and that’s all you need to make your cake!

This video has some fun cake and soda ideas, the toppings and such aren’t vegan but I like to use them for inspiration!

Canned Pumpkin or Squash

This one is great for cakes or cookies that can really use a fall-spice to them. All you have to do is substitute 1 egg with 1/4 cup of the puree.

Vegetable Oil

When making cakes, vegetable oil works great with substituting eggs as well. Just add 1/4 cup of vegetable oil!

Vegan Yogurt

Any kind of vegan yogurt works well for replacing eggs, especially in breads and muffins. It makes things super moist and delish, just the way I like my baked goods! You’re probably catching on to the substitutions trend, but I’ll say it anyway: sub 1 egg with 1/4 cup of vegan yogurt!

Here’s a cute lil chart that I love to use as a reference for egg substitutes. Plus, it’s from Vegan Street so that’s always a huge plus 🙂

The few egg replacers that I posted today are just the tip of the iceberg, and just cover the baking side of the spectrum. When it comes to scrambled eggs/egg salad/pad Thai etc, that’s a whollleeeee other story (which I’d love to get into at a later date!) When so many replacements for eggs exist, we really have no reason to support the cruelty that goes on in the egg industry!

Do you have any other egg replacers that you can’t live without? I’d loooove to hear them, I’m always down to try new substitutions!

I’m going to have to try that VeganEgg especially for french toast as you mentioned! So far my favorite egg replacer has been applesauce for baking. I used it in brownie mix and came out delicious! You have great ideas for other options too!